A Time to Run (21 page)

He also included photos of the suspect's rifle. There were notches – four of them – hacked in a row into the wooden stock. It appeared to be a tally.

Bevan took blood samples in the rear of the tray to be sent for analysis. Kangaroos had different blood types to humans but the volume of roo blood made it unlikely that anything else mixed in might be identified. He could confirm Sammi had been alive in the rear of the ute, but couldn't say if she had died in the same place.

Too many questions still needed answers. And they didn't know if they were looking for a woman or a corpse.

Sunday 2:37 pm

The information was flooding into the Op Echo room from many different sources.

Janine rang in to update Bill on the interview.

‘Did you break him?' Bill asked.

‘Did you really think that was going to be possible?' Janine countered. ‘We did catch him out in a few lies. Cagey bastard. He played dumb, waiting to see what we knew.'

‘So what did you get from him?' Bill asked.

‘He got the sweats when I asked him about Captain's Creek. When I said we were going to find her, he said “No, you won't.” Like he had taken her there, but we weren't going to be able to find her.'

Bill made a noncommittal noise down the phone.

‘He denied he knew her, then said he'd given her a lift to the shops once he knew she'd been seen in his car,' Janine said. ‘The thing is, he thought we knew more. There was a look of relief that crossed his face. He was waiting for us to say we found something, or we had some evidence. Once he realised we'd only got a couple of clues and some hunches, he clammed up, wouldn't say anything else.'

‘What did he think we knew?' Bill asked. ‘What's your gut feeling on it?'

‘Sean and I discussed this before we rang,' Janine said. ‘He's definitely taken her, but he thought we had more evidence. We both agree, though, from his reaction to our questions, that he thought we had a direct link between him and Sammi. I think there's a chance Sammi got away from him. We don't know where she is, but perhaps neither does he.'

Bill looked at a list on the desk in front of him. Missing Persons Bureau had provided a list of all the unsolved cases involving women in Queensland since Donald Black had moved to the state four years ago. It was broken down into the person's details, when they went missing, last seen location and a précis of the investigation. It was a short list, with only five names on it. Bill had been comparing the details on the list with the details given to Crime Stoppers by Graham Tunney.

‘We've had an interesting call to Crime Stoppers,' Bill said, playing with the corner of the paper in front of him. ‘Some blokes on a hunting trip encountered Black and his dog in unusual circumstances.'

‘Where and when?' Janine asked immediately.

‘Captain's Creek, earlier this year. The details match with another prostitute reported missing. She was last seen in the city,' Bill said.

‘That's much more recent than the poor woman out at Yonga State Forest,' Janine said, speaking a little faster.

‘There was another call to Crime Stoppers. An ex of Black. She thought he was going to kill her one night, and he talked about going to see the captain,' Bill said.

‘
Really
? Do you need any more than that?' Janine said. ‘He took Sammi to Captain's Creek!'

‘Yep, I agree with you. Two rangers are on their way right now,' Bill said. ‘But the inspector thinks we should concentrate our resources on Yonga because we have tangible evidence there. We have an actual body instead of speculation.'

‘Two rangers? That's the best we can do? What if she's still alive?' Janine implored.

‘We have to be realistic, Janine. We've got a pretty good idea of who this bloke is and what he's been up to. Do you really think he took Sammi out for a picnic in the bush? That he just dropped her off out in the bush and has left her wandering around?' Bill said. ‘We've got a suspect but, sorry, we're looking for another corpse, aren't we?'

Sunday 3:03 pm

Sammi staggered forward. One more step. Just one more step. She glanced at her watch, more out of habit than to check the time. She couldn't remember what it had said the last time she looked anyway. Had any time passed at all? Her shirt had pretty much dried out, but her shorts were still damp and the material clung to the front of her thighs. She was chilled to the bone, despite it being a warm afternoon.

She stopped and tried to focus, studying the dial of her watch. The big hand was on the twelve, the little hand just past the three. The hand counting out the seconds seemed to have stopped. It was flickering, one second forward, then one second back. Time was no longer moving. She was caught in an endless loop of trees and creek and seconds. She dropped to her knees, then onto her bottom. She gave her head a shake.

She knew she was hallucinating. Hunger, exhaustion, terror would do that to you. If she was going to start seeing things, why couldn't it be her angels again? She scanned the bush, looking for a friendly shimmering face, but even her visions had abandoned her.

She had severe stomach cramps. It felt as if her insides were contracting behind her ribs. Her eyes ached as if someone was trying to pop them out from inside her skull. Her legs no longer hurt anymore, because she had lost sensation in them.

She was spent, too fatigued to even cry.

Thoughts of Gavin flashed into her mind. She tried to imagine every detail of his face. But she could no longer remember the shape of his lips, or the timbre of his voice when he laughed. It made her unbearably sad. Why had they parted on such bad terms? How could she let him know that she hadn't meant it? That she loved him?

She closed her eyes, but couldn't tell if she dozed off or how long she sat there. Then movement caught her eye. She stared as a long brownish snake slithered its way across the dead leaves and broken branches about a metre in front of where she sat. Clearly she had been sitting motionless in the dirt for long enough that the wildlife was now ignoring her.

She should move away. That's what you did when you saw a snake. Then she remembered she needed food, and recognised the snake for what it was – a long piece of meat. Without giving herself the opportunity to think twice, Sammi grabbed her pointy stick and acted quickly. The snake was heading for a fallen log. Moving quicker than she had all day, she rolled onto her knees and whacked the middle of the snake, just as the head started to disappear under the log.

The exhaustion took the strength out of her arms. Although her stick did make contact with the snake, it was not hard enough to disable or damage it, just enough to anger it. Under attack, the snake twisted around, raising its forebody and head. With a speed and agility that Sammi had not anticipated, it struck out at her, mouth wide, fangs exposed. She felt a sharp pain like a bee sting as the snake bit her on the right wrist.

She shrieked and thrashed her arms in its direction, but it had already recoiled. She staggered to her feet and took three steps backwards. The sudden movement and panic made her head spin.

Sammi stared at the two puncture marks on her wrist, her heart palpitating. On impulse, she put her mouth over the wound, sucked hard and spat on the ground. Wasn't that how they treated snake bites in the olden days? The metallic taste of her own blood made her retch. Then the vomit came but there was nothing but water and sour bile. Her head spun and she felt so faint, as if she might float away on the breeze. She had nothing left.

That was it. She had fought as hard as she could. She had outwitted the serial killer. She had endured the cold night. She had battled hunger and exhaustion. But in the end, she was but one girl against the wild.

She let her legs buckle underneath her and slumped onto the dirt.

Sunday 3:05 pm

Doctor Eli Jakobsen always tried to accommodate the police. He respected their job and knew they were all working towards the same aim – the pursuit of truth. He knew a forensic pathologist such as himself could go some way to unlocking the information contained in a dead body, and separate the natural deaths from the suspicious ones.

He was good at his job because he was a curious man by nature, and his job interested him because there were so many variables, so many questions to ask. When the detective had called and explained the situation to him, he immediately agreed to help and headed straight to the mortuary.

Instead of the usual blue body bag, an odd-shaped package sealed in a large brown exhibit bag sat on the steel examination table. An uneasy detective loitered at the door, obviously sent along to observe continuity and to report back on any findings.

The doctor's assistant, Steven, dressed in a surgical gown, gloves and mask, carefully cut open the bag near the top. At some point, someone had determined this to be an exhibit, and had sealed the bag with tamperproof tape. Steven then cut through a black garbage bag, and then another, and a brown tail flopped out of the open bag.

‘Have you ever done an autopsy on a dog before, Doctor?' Steven asked, as he cut the bags free from around the barman's dead dog.

‘No, I can't say I have. I did Google it before I came. Incredible what you can find on Google,' Eli said. ‘They don't want an autopsy anyway, just an analysis of the stomach contents. I'm pretty sure they know what killed him.'

The dog was now unwrapped and the bullet hole cleaving his nose open was quite obvious, as was the one between his forelegs.

Eli pointed to the dog's jaw and Steven grabbed the mouth and opened it up so he could check inside. It was something they did with corpses and seemed like an obvious place to start, on the way to the stomach.

Steven rolled the lips back off the sharp yellow canine teeth. ‘You'd know about it if they were chewing on you,' he remarked.

Eli had a digital recorder and made audio notes as he went along. ‘The animal is a large brown dog, some sort of cross I guess. Bull mastiff features, I think. Two bullet wounds, front of the snout and between the forelegs. No visible exit points.'

He turned to Steven. ‘Let's just open him up from the base of the throat to the penis. We'll stick with what we know and try to do it as we would a human. It's just the stomach we're after. It shouldn't be too hard to find once we've got him open.'

Using a scalpel, Steven slit the dog open, then used shears to snip each rib bone and pried open the chest cavity. Steven was surprised at how much he recognised. He had been a mortuary technician for three years but this was the first time he had ever seen the inside of an animal. He followed the large intestines back up to the stomach, clamped the inlet and outlet shut and cut the stomach out with two sharp strokes of the scalpel. The bullets had done some damage to the internal organs, but the stomach itself was intact. He handed it to Eli, then turned and readied some vials for samples.

Eli slit open the stomach and the sour smell of acid rushed up towards him. He had been doing this for over twenty years and there was no smell or sound a dead body, human or animal, could produce that would bother him.

There was a gagging noise from the doorway as the smell reached the police officer.

‘Just breathe through your mouth,' Steven called over helpfully.

The contents were a gluggy paste. Eli separated the lumps with his scalpel, inspecting them.

‘The dog has eaten fairly recently before it died. And didn't get much water with its dinner. There are pieces of flesh in its stomach contents, but some have fur on them. The flesh is uniform in colour and texture so I would say the dog has only eaten one type of meat.'

He used his gloved finger to scrape muck off one of the bigger pieces of undigested flesh and peered at the fur.

‘Kangaroo would be my best guess,' he said. ‘But I'll take some specimens for analysis.'

He deftly scooped some samples into the vials Steven handed him. They were sealed with barcodes for identification and Steven packed them for delivery to the laboratory.

Eli looked towards the doorway. ‘That's what you needed?' he asked the detective. The man nodded and squeezed out a quick ‘thanks'. He just about ran for the door and the fresh air outside.

Steven laughed after they heard the door slam. ‘You'd think cops would have stronger stomachs,' he said.

Sunday 3:29 pm

Janine was online, trying to book a flight back to Brisbane. It was getting late and she needed to start thinking what she would do if she was stuck in Emerald for the night. She didn't regret coming out here but she needed to be back in Brisbane where the action was. There was still so much to do.

A job like this was the reason Janine had become a police officer in the first place. This was a complex investigation with life or death consequences. If she could catch this psycho and put him away for good, that was the ultimate conclusion both professionally and personally.

A phone call from Bevan at forensics was put through to Janine. She'd already received the news about the fingerprints and wondered if there was something he had not included in his report. He sounded tense and started without preamble.

‘I found a SIM card in the ute,' he said. ‘It was hidden in with the fuses. We'd found his camera earlier and I guessed he'd removed the SIM card for a reason. So I just kept looking till I found it. I'm going to email you through the photos. They are gruesome, so make sure you have some privacy when you look at them. But they are going to crack your case wide open,' Bevan said.

‘Pictures of Sammi?' Janine queried.

‘Yes and no,' Bevan said without further explanation. ‘Just prepare yourself for some sick stuff.'

Janine felt a shiver of anticipation. She called out for Sean. He appeared next to her computer as she was opening Bevan's email.

‘The forensics guy found a SIM card hidden in the ute. He's just sent through the photos.'

Hearing the anxiety in her voice, Sean wordlessly pulled up a seat next to Janine. She reached for the mouse and started clicking through the pictures, quickly once she saw the content. She did not want to dwell on them. Not now. There would be time for that later.

The first three photos were of the missing prostitute the barman had been questioned about. Janine felt bad that she couldn't even remember her name. She recognised the clothing though. The shots showed her dead on the ground in the bush. Her throat had been slit, her head bent back at an unnatural angle. The photos looked as if they had been taken at night.

Next came another woman. Janine thought she recognised the face from the Missing Persons files she had looked through. These photos were taken during the day and set up the pattern to come – first there was a full-length shot, then one from the side and finally a close-up of her face. The woman's head was tilted slightly away from the camera, her eyes looking at the ground, fear on her face. She was dead in the next picture. On her back on the ground, in the bush. Again a close-up of her face, her unseeing eyes staring blankly, her fear drained along with her blood.

Another click of the mouse, a new victim. The same series of photos: before death, and after. A trophy of the barman's power and cruelty over the victims.

Tahlia Corbett was the next face. Her face was ashen and Janine could almost hear her whimpering. She had been shot and probably savaged by the dog by the look of her injuries in the postmortem photos. She had been so young.

‘That's four now,' Sean said in a low voice.

‘He's a serial killer. Bill was right. They're all linked,' Janine said.

Her hand was shaking slightly as she reached for the mouse. She paused before clicking, afraid of what she might see next. Another shot of Tahlia with her abdominal cavity cut open, followed by one of the barman's dog chewing a dismembered arm. His methods were getting more gruesome.

Another click of the mouse and there she was. Janine recognised her instantly. Even though she had been anticipating it, she was still shocked to see Sammi. She was looking straight at the camera. She was staring defiantly, her teeth slightly clenched. A full-length shot, one from the side, then a close-up of her face, the fear in her eyes now visible beneath the bravado. The same pattern. Three shots while they were still alive. Janine knew what was to come next. She froze, too scared to click the mouse again. Sean reached past her and hit the mouse button. The first woman popped up again.

‘That's back to the beginning. That was the last photo,' he said.

‘There are no dead shots of Sammi,' Janine said. Sean nodded.

‘He didn't kill her,' Janine whispered. ‘We have to find her.'

Sunday 3:36 pm

Pieces of information dribbled through to Gavin, but nothing conclusive. Yes, they had the guy. Yes, Sammi had been tied up in the back of his ute. All bad news. Despite this, the police had been unable to extract any useful information from the barman and were no closer to finding Sammi.

Gavin thought of jumping in his car and driving out to Emerald. If he had ten minutes alone with a cricket bat and that bastard, he was sure he'd get some answers. He knew he wouldn't be allowed to even see the man, but there were often unofficial ways around these things. He'd hung out a lot with coppers and heard all the stories, which may or may not have been true. The story that kept coming to mind was about an officer who dressed up in scuba gear and beat a confession out of a suspect using a dead fish. When the baddie had tried to explain the event to both the legal-aid solicitor as well as the magistrate, no one believed him because it was so outrageous. Gavin didn't know if the story was true or not, but he would have given anything a go at that point.

Tom was being a great friend and checked in constantly.

‘I will tell you everything I find out,' Tom had said, looking him in the eye. ‘Everything.'

Despite this, Gavin's frustration was building to breaking point. He felt worse than useless, as if his inaction was slowing down the investigation, slowing down time itself. He wanted to punch the barman's face in, kick him in the stomach until he was spewing blood. He had never felt hatred, in its most pure and unyielding form, before now. It was gnawing his insides with poisonous thoughts.